Chapter 1

Big Question: Are schools educationally effective?
America 2000 critiques
1. schools not doing as well as in the past; linked to economy
2. drop out rate is 25%
3. too expensive for what we get (low test scores)
these are later argued to be false critiques by Eisner

America is diverse and a one-size-fits-all curriculum won't cut it

Edward Thorndike

• "connectionism"
• human behavior can be shaped
• increase student performance through standardization

Frederick Taylor

• "Efficiency Movement"
• (assembly line) minimize movement/deviation
• managerial process of work
• individual incentive/initiative=error
• "converted curricula to training programs"

Raymond Callahan (1962)

• leading student efficiency
• vulnerability thesis (can someone explain this???)
• scientific approach does not work

Dewey

• students as live creatures
• disequilibrium leads to potential productivity
• child must be active and have a stake in the experience
• growth occurs only when child pursues own purpose
• much inquiry
• (in)determinate situation
• problem-centered environments
• formidable model of teaching

Franklin Bobbit (1924)

• "Father of curriculum"
• build on work of F. Taylor
• naive view of rational planning

Henry Harap (1932)

• The Technique of Curriculum Making
• like Bobbit, technological

Ralph Tyler (1950)

• Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction
• observable behavior as evidence for learning
• like Dewey: experience is important
• like Bobbit: objectives
• like Harap: data sources for objectives (clarification please?!!!)
• Four Questions:
  • What are the educational purposes?
  • Helpful educational experiences?
  • Organize educational experiences?
  • Determine if the educational experiences are attained?
• means-ends orientation

Arthur Bestor and Admiral Hyman Rickover (50s)

• schools are too laissez-faire

Sputnik

• spike in federal money for math, science and ss
• top-down reform

Jerome Bruner (1960)

• The Process of Education
• engage students in practical thinking of disciplines

Back-to-Basics Movement
Effective Schools Movement

Chapter 2

Curriculum, "what schools teach" to "specific activity"
--Latin: "currere"/the course to be run

As school Experiences
1920 Progressive Educators
1. experience is paramount
2. discovered by looking back; also beyond classroom

Curriculum Decision Making

general to particular and present to future

small-scale changes must be made after large-scale decisions
Curriculum--"series of planned events intended to have educational consequences for 1 or more student

Intended and Operational Curriculum

emergent v. long-term curriculum

Normative Curriculum

• realization of worth-while aims
• set of values
• Education v. Schooling
  • growth leads to further growth
• Educational: contributes to growth
• Noneducational: simply undergone, no influence
• Miseducational: thwart ability for future growth, as in phobias

Descriptive Curriculum

• account of and account for a set of phenomena
• borrowed from psychology
• subtly pervaded by normative theory

Curriculum Diffuesion (v. Installation)

• state frameworks
• textbooks
• districts
• politics
• timetable
• conventions/consultants
• entrance requirements
• budget

Chapter 3

Six Ideologies

• Religious Orthodoxy

üAll share a belief in God and sharing of God’s message in their educational practice
ü90% Roman Catholic, including Jesuit (social justice)
üOther – Jewish
üWaldorf Schools – spiritual connection
üThose who hold dogmatic beliefs their first aim is to educate their children in those beliefs. (page 62)

• Rational Humanism

ü
ü Elitist view

ü Three beliefs – western views

ü Enlightenment period

ü Use primary source documents – Example: Read Thomas Jefferson’s work instead of reading about him

ü Vocational skills responsibility of higher level education, not elementary schools

ü Electives are undesirable

• Progressivism
  • ü John Dewey
    ü Two streams – conception of nature of human experience and intelligence and social reform
    ü Personal vs. political
    ü Intelligence is growth
    ü Using experiences and finding places for them to fit at appropriate level tasks so the student can grow
    ü Curriculum is problem centered – child acts environment, not just absorbing

ü

• Critical Theory

üLess of an educational ideology than others
üMost visible and articulate analysis of education
üMain function is the revelation of tacit implicit) values that are underlying
üPolitical left
üRaising consciousness
üAim is to emancipate the unsuspecting from debilitating practices of schools
üConcern with hidden curriculum and the “hider”
üBased on Marx’s ideas
üNegative approach to society and industry
üNegative view of school – “Pulling weeds is helpful, but their elimination in a garden does not insure flowers will grow, flowers have to be planted.” (page 74)
üNeed to go from text to action- what would a school built on these beliefs look like?

• Reconceptualism

ü Emerged in 1970’s
ü More of orientation than dogma (more of a direction than a system of beliefs
ü A way of thinking
ü James MacDonald, Dwayne Heubner, William Pinar (US)
ü “Means end” Mentality – solution for every problem (not real life)

ü Efficient, specific, standardized goals; scientific experiment

ü Like Critical Theory in thinks of schooling as use of perspective of experiences and rather than application of rules


• Cognitive Pluralism

üTwo branches – mind and knowledge
üKnowledge – being able to manipulate symbols
üGardner – ways of thinking
üHow we think
üExpansion of literacy and equity in classroom

Chapter 4

Explicit

Culture of school is important
What we are teaching kids in our school environment - most is not written

Implicit

Null

Chapter 5



• Behavioral Objectives
  • Specific goals hope to achieve
  • Roots of Objective movement
  • Limitations of Behavioral Objectives
• Problem Solving Objectives
• Expressive Outcomes
• General questions

Chapter 6 Dimensions of Curriculum Planning

Those Who plan the curriculum:

• teachers
  • main person who influences the curriculum
  • interpreter of educational policy
  • determines the role of the student (may be involved in planning curriculum even)
• District-Wide Curriculum Planning
  • a committee may be appointed and compensated for their time (what a thought!)
  • create materials for schools to use
  • very different to plan vs. implement (as teachers do)
• State Curriculum Planning
  • 1-3 year periods of planning
  • make use of knowledgeable people in each field
  • question professional groups for their opinions (work toward social efficiency)
  • states provide frameworks for districts
    • mandates can be enforced with money
    • may specify minutes/subject/week
• Research and Development Center
  • educational laboratories (meaning they will fail at times)
  • millions of dollars for budgets
• Commercial Publishers as Planners of Curriculum
  • textbook makers
  • most influential
  • more and more include multimedia resources
• Federal Influences on Curriculum
  • new curriculum influences and initiatives
    • money and publicity
  • presidential speeches
    • focus on math and science
    • takes away from other content areas?

Dimensions of Curriculum Planning
Aims v. Goals v. Objectives
*from broad and vague to specific, but each serve a particular purpose

Types of Learning Opportunities
J.P. Guilford's taxonomy of mental processes

Chapter 7

The Art of Teaching

Chapter 10

Educational Connoisseurship and Criticism

Criticism

• 1."an empirical understanding"
  • empiricus="open to experience"
• the perception of works of art (qualities and relationships)
• not an abstraction (not interpretations of observations, but the perceptions themselves)
• 2. anything can be criticized
  • not a negative appraisal, but an illumination of qualities

Connoisseurship

• the act of knowledgeable perception; to know how to look, see, appreciate
• gives depth to criticism
  • must be a critic to be a connoisseur, but not vice versa
• to know the subtleties by having a range of experiences
• experience alone does not guarantee connoisseurship

Discursive vs. Nondiscursive Knowledge

• discursive
  • language of criticism
  • used in science and math
  • much of our speech
  • ex: "liked by many people"
• nondiscursive
  • "a language that presents to our consciousness what the feeling of those qualities is"
  • used more in the arts, when literal words are not sufficient to describe
  • the "shape" of the language, the art of language itself
  • ex: "cool"

Four Aspects of Educational Criticism

• each aspect provides a different lens which may provide a sharper image of the examination or critique

Descriptive (p. 226)

The descriptive aspect of educational criticism is essentially an attempt to identify and characterize, portray, or render in language the relevant qualities of educational life.

Interpretative (p. 229)

The interpretative aspect of criticism asks: What does the situation mean to those involved?

Evaluative (p. 231)

... evaluative aspects of educational criticism that most clearly distinguishes the work of the educational critic from that of the social scientist. Education is, after all, a normative enterprise. Unlike schooling or learning or socialization (all of which are descriptive terms), eduaction is a process that fosters personal development and contributes to social well being.

Thematic (p. 233)

Thematics is the distillation of the major ideas or conclusions that are to be derived from the material that preceded it.

Quantitative and Qualitative Forms of Inquiry

• Quantitative inquirers view qualities in quantitative form in order to examine them statistically.
• Qualitative inquirers changes values to be examined into comparable vicarious artifacts to describe and measure against events or objects.
• Qualitative inquiry in an educational setting is more open ended. The criticism is made through the observations of the critic rather than against a prescribed standard. This allows for greater flexibility to interpret observations.

Structural Corraboration

Chapter 11

Chapter 13 - Summing up Major Points